Sunday, November 29, 2009

I'm not missing the seagulls as much as I thought I would. Those little bastards made a habit out of pooping on my car at least three times a week all summer and I grew to loath them. They have dead-on aim I tell you. But in the end, they're just doing their job and I'll admit, they grew on me. They're doing what they do, doing what makes them happy. It makes me think about what I'm doing, if I'm doing what makes me happy, as a writer, as a friend, and as a person.

I've finally moved off the sailboat that I've called home since July. The weather finally got to me. It wasn't that the space was so small. It wasn't that I couldn't get the temperature above 55 degrees most nights. It wasn't the above mentioned seagulls. It was the walk down the dock itself that did me in. The sideways rain and determined wind finally convinced me that I needed to seek other shelter and get off the water. I now find myself far from the bay under the cover of a roof and four walls with a heater that has no problem keeping my hands and feet as warm as I like them. And these days I'll admit, I like them pretty warm. So with winter shelter secured I now find myself focusing on my winter goals, to write, and to finally finish this book that I started almost a year ago to the day.

Starting to write again after a long hiatus is a somewhat daunting task. It's not easy to sit down and get the words flowing once again after basically taking the summer off from what I longingly like to call a burgeoning writing career. This seems to be the case for many things in our lives; there are things we always mean to accomplish but somehow put onto the back burner. Things like getting getting out into the woods to hike or starting that fall clean-up project in the garage or going back to work after a long time off. We all have tasks that we may have procrastinated against for some time, but we know that after that task is done we'll feel so much better about ourselves, experiencing a feeling of accomplishment and completion. These are important feelings that are easy to forget about sometimes, forgetting how good and on-track our lives will feel if we just get up and put ourselves in gear. But inevitably we instead sometimes choose the easier path of contentment and complacency. We're all only human.

There's no reason to get down on ourselves for not getting everything done all at once. There's no reason to hurry through life and we don't have to finish it in one day. We just need to keep in mind that there are things that aren't going to complete themselves, and in life we can only take ourselves as far we'll let ourselves go. We're all in the driver's seat racing down life's highway with our eyes open watching for what comes next. Some of us have our hands tight on the steering wheel with our foot on the gas, and some of us prefer to drive with our knees with our foot hovering over the brake pedal as we fumble with the radio. Either way, we're going to get where we're going no matter what speed we're traveling; we're all just moving ourselves down the road to our next task. Whether you're smiling as you drive past is what matters. In life there are no rules, save for the ones you place on yourself. If it makes you happy, do it. There's no better time than the present and no better reason to do anything than to feed your own happiness. It's not selfish, it's necessary. Happiness feeds the soul, warms the heart, brightens the day and just may be what really keeps the world turning.